SHOKUNIN I

Title - Shokunin I
Duration - approx. 40 minutes
Choreographer / Dancer - Kai Tomioka Aya Misaki
Music - Andrea Balency-Béarn (original score)

Shokunin is the Japanese term for craftsperson,
referring not only to technical skill,
but to a lifelong dedication to mastery, precision, humility, and care. This work translates that spirit into contemporary dance, approaching choreography as a dialogue with materials in which transformation emerges through repetition, accumulation, and sustained attention.
It is the first chapter in an ongoing series built around this concept. The work is informed by sensibilities found across practices such as nanba walking, Zen, and the Mono-ha movement:a commitment to listening closely to a material rather than imposing upon it. Within this framework, the body itself becomes a material to be observed, shaped, and understood through experience.
We are interested in how attention can reveal what is already present. Space, time, sound, memory, sensation,
and the subtle movement of the body are treated as
realities to be encountered rather than represented.

The work creates conditions in which these elements can be experienced and shared. At its core, Shokunin I explores the relationship between making and being made.
Through repetition, restraint, and deep engagement with process, choreography emerges not as a fixed form but as something continually discovered. The work draws upon artistic experiences in Japan, where an awareness of negative space, tension, presence, and materiality has profoundly influenced the artists' approach. These influences shape not only the aesthetic of the work but its choreographic logic, cultivating a practice of listening, patience, and attentiveness.

YUI (結) — 2026

Created for Akiha Dance Festival 2026 in Niigata, YUI (結) is a work that celebrates every stage of life: its beginning, its unfolding, its journey, and its ending.

As the Shinano River flows through Niigata, nourishing the land it touches before finding its way to the Sea of Japan, the work reflects on the journeys and connections that sustain us: the land we stand on, the communities we belong to, and the stories and cultures we inherit.

結 (Yui) means to bind, to tie, to connect, to join together.

Bringing together 31 people from Akiha, Niigata, aged 5 to 73, YUI is an intergenerational work spanning three generations. It explores the space between past, present, and future, and how these are carried through memory, empathy, experience, and dreams.

The work is rooted in the idea that, regardless of age, story, or experience, we are bound together by our capacity to share, to witness, and to belong. Individual stories become part of something larger, as movement passes between people and generations.

Niigata’s landscape and relationship with rice also became an important part of the work. Rice is harvested only once a year, and Niigata is Japan’s leading producer. For farmers, this single moment of harvest is the culmination of an entire year’s labour: months of care, repetition, patience, and devotion. What we see is only a brief moment of something that has been quietly growing for a much longer time.

There is something in this process that feels deeply connected to community. To feed, to nourish, and to grow something sustainable requires time and ongoing care. Much of the work happens quietly, unseen, before eventually coming into the open.

YUI reflects on these cycles of growth, change, and renewal. The dancers move between togetherness and individuality, carrying and responding to one another. Different bodies, ages, and experiences meet within the same space, creating a shared landscape of movement and memory.

Like the river, the work is concerned with movement and continuity: where we come from, what we carry with us, and what we pass on.

YUI is ultimately a celebration of connection. Of the threads that bind us together despite time, age, and distance. Of looking forward with hope and optimism, while also looking back with the warmth of memory.

Perhaps it takes a community to raise a child. Perhaps the same can be said of dance.

Choreography: Kai Tomioka
Performers: 31 dancers and movers from Akiha, Niigata, aged 5–73
In collaboration with: Nephrite Dance Company for Akiha Dance Festival 2026
Year: 2026

抜け殻 (NUKEGARA)

抜け殻 (NUKEGARA)
Choreographed and danced by Kai Tomioka Music composed by Andrea Balency-Béarn
Wearable art created by Mai Suzuki

In loving memory of Molly Ayling.

A shell remains. The shape of a body that was once there, still clinging to the tree. It has already left, yet its presence lingers in the imprint of its former self. To shed is to let go. It is to leave something behind. We don’t only grieve absence; we continue to inhabit the spaces shaped by what once existed. The body we carry holds traces of bodies, places, and selves that are no longer there. There is a moment in the shedding where both bodies exist at once. The one being left behind, and the one still becoming. Neither quite gone, neither fully arrived. The shell is empty because life has moved elsewhere. It is empty to make space for what might come next.

A solo coming to terms with grief.

抜け殻 (NUKEGARA)
振付・出演：富岡櫂
音楽：アンドレア　バレンシーバアン
ウェアラブルアート：鈴木舞

モリー　エイリングへ、愛を込めて

そこの木の幹にしがみついていた。もう実態は無いが、かつてあった存在は、まだ印象を残している。脱皮する事は、何かを捨てて前に進むこと。不在を悲しむだけで無く、一度は存在したものを軌跡として心に刻んでおくのだ。そして今の存在は次の存在と時を共有している。二つが共に不在では無く、二つが共に存在するわけでも無い。抜け殻は、生命が他に進んだがために空っぽだ。しかしその殻は、次に来るものがそのそれを埋める事を知っている。埋める存在を待ち望んでいるのだ。グリーフと向き合うソロ作品

抜け殻 (NUKEGARA)
Choreographed and danced by Kai Tomioka Music composed by Andrea Balency-Béarn
Wearable art created by Mai Suzuki
In loving memory of Molly Ayling.

Visual Artist Mai Suzuki

Movement Direction Kai Tomioka and Paris Fitzpatrick

Photographer Alex Storey

Still Alive, Already Gone

I am afraid of slowly disappearing whilst still being alive. My emotions and desires become numb through adapting to external values and social systems, the feeling of being alive begins to fade. I explore this disconnection between body and emotion through corpse expressions that blur the boundaries between organic and inorganic, human and non-human. The work exists within a threshold where subjectivity and meaning begin to disappear, questioning what it truly means to be alive as the body begins to transform into an object.

Despite my body being alive, I fear that my sense of "self" is slowly disappearing. As I adapt to external values and social systems, my emotions and desires gradually become duller, and my sense of "being alive" fades away. Through body sculptures that blur the boundaries between organic and inorganic matter, between human and non-human, I explore the disconnect between body and life. There, subjectivity and meaning are slowly lost, and the body gradually transforms into something like an object. Within that boundary, I question what it means to "be alive."

「生」　Truth in flesh

生

This is an ongoing collaboration with visual artist Mai Suzki bringing traditional Japanese Kumiko craft techniques and dance.

This is an ongoing collaboration with visual artist Mai Suzki bringing traditional Japanese Kumiko craft techniques and dance.

Photography by Isao Okita.

IMA KOKO

A meeting in the now,
that will never be the same again.

A world of fantasy.
A glimpse into our garden of imagination.
You can stay as long as you like.

A world built on trust, and safety, and warmth.
A world without limitation.
Our garden. Outdoor space.

Nurture. Feed. Grow. A living thing.
moments of now.

Time is irrelevant.

Bohyo (儚氷) (2025) — Choreography by Kai Tomioka.
Performed at Chidoribunka, Osaka
Dancers: Aya Misaki, Yuki Takahashi, Sayo Homma, Kai Tomioka, Tamako Kuramoto
Music by Andrea Balency-Bearn
Photography by Mex Wahab

Bohyo (儚氷) — 2025

Bohyo (儚氷) was created in Osaka in summer 2025 as Kai Tomioka’s first full-length choreographic work. Developed with a cast of five dancers, the work was presented across three performances at Chidoribunka in Kitakagaya, Osaka, an independent venue known for its cross-disciplinary programming.

The title, Bohyo (儚氷), meaning “ephemeral ice,” establishes the work’s central tension between stillness and transformation. Ice becomes both a physical and metaphorical image: solid yet temporary, fragile yet resilient, and constantly shaped by changes in temperature, pressure, and time.

The work takes inspiration from the Japanese folktale of Yuki Onna, the snow woman, particularly through Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. Rather than presenting a direct retelling of the myth, Bohyo draws on its imagery and contradictions to explore femininity, strength, vulnerability, and impermanence.

The figure of Yuki Onna is approached through opposing qualities: beauty and danger, tenderness and terror, fragility and power. These dualities are translated into a physical language centred on breath, suspension, repetition, stillness, and transformation. Coldness and the presence of ice become recurring images through which the dancers move between states of tension and release, containment and expansion.

Performed by Aya Misaki, Yuki Takahashi, Sayo Homma, Tamako Kuramoto, and Kai Tomioka, the work combines contemporary dance with an original musical score by Andrea Balency-Béarn. The choreography and sound create an atmospheric landscape in which the body becomes a site of transformation, memory, and shifting states.

Bohyo considers the space between vulnerability and resilience, and the possibility of transformation within states of impermanence.

Choreography: Kai Tomioka
Dancers: Aya Misaki, Yuki Takahashi, Sayo Homma, Kai Tomioka, Tamako Kuramoto
Music: Andrea Balency-Béarn
Photography: Mex Wahab
Venue: Chidoribunka, Osaka
Year: 2025

WHO AM I (DANCE FILM)

WHO AM I (DANCE FILM)
CHOREOGRAPHY / PERFORMER: KAI TOMIOKA
FILMMAKING / CINEMATOGRAPHY: AKIHITO OHSAKI
COSTUME : MAI SUZKI
MUSIC COMPOSITION: ANDREA BALENCY - BEARN

“Who am I?” — The Film and First Collaboration (2024)

“Who am I?” marked the beginning of my ongoing collaboration with visual artist Mai Suzuki and composer Andrea. Created over a single week between Tokyo and Shimane, the film explored duality, identity, and cross-cultural connection through dance, sound, and visual design. Filmed in both urban and natural landscapes, the work juxtaposed the intensity of Tokyo with the stillness of rural Japan, reflecting the coexistence of chaos and quiet that defines contemporary existence.
The film was edited collaboratively across Japan, the UK, and Mexico making it a cross-continental creative exchange in both time and space. Mai’s handcrafted costumes, constructed from traditional tatami and Kumiko woodwork, embodied fragility and transformation, while Andrea’s score was built from environmental recordings and material sounds. Presented in black and white, the film stripped away colour to reveal tone, texture, and the equality of all elements in the movement, sound, and image, forming the basis of our shared aesthetic philosophy.

CHOREOGRAPHY / PERFORMER: KAI TOMIOKA

FILMMAKING / CINEMATOGRAPHY: AKIHITO OHSAKI

COSTUME : MAI SUZKI

MUSIC COMPOSITION: ANDREA BALENCY - BEARN

“Who am I?” — The Film and First Collaboration (2024)

“Who am I?” marked the beginning of my ongoing collaboration with visual artist Mai Suzuki and composer Andrea. Created over a single week between Tokyo and Shimane, the film explored duality, identity, and cross-cultural connection through dance, sound, and visual design. Filmed in both urban and natural landscapes, the work juxtaposed the intensity of Tokyo with the stillness of rural Japan, reflecting the coexistence of chaos and quiet that defines contemporary existence.

The film was edited collaboratively across Japan, the UK, and Mexico making it a cross-continental creative exchange in both time and space. Mai’s handcrafted costumes, constructed from traditional tatami and Kumiko woodwork, embodied fragility and transformation, while Andrea’s score was built from environmental recordings and material sounds. Presented in black and white, the film stripped away colour to reveal tone, texture, and the equality of all elements in the movement, sound, and image, forming the basis of our shared aesthetic philosophy.

Shoji (2024)

Created in summer 2024 as part of the MA Choreography programme at Central School of Ballet, Shoji was commissioned for the first-year students and developed in collaboration with composer Andrea Balency-Béarn, a PhD candidate at the Royal Academy of Music.

The work takes the Japanese shōji screen as its central image, exploring its sliding movement and the shifting relationship between concealment and revelation. The physical and visual qualities of the shōji are translated into a choreographic language concerned with transitions, spatial boundaries, visibility, and absence.

The accompanying score was created entirely from manipulated recordings of Japanese shōji paper. The materiality of the paper becomes an audible presence within the work, developing from subtle textures and gestures into more rhythmic and percussive layers. A central climax, drawing on the rhythmic qualities of taiko, brings the dancers into collective unison before gradually dissolving into counted breath spoken rhythmically in Japanese.

The choreography and sound operate as parallel forms, moving between stillness, resonance, silence, and rhythm. The work considers how sound and movement can occupy and shape space, while also evoking connections between memory, cultural inheritance, and the body.

Shoji ultimately explores dualities between sound and movement, concealment and revelation, stillness and rhythm, and what is physically visible and what is sensed.

One, and the same

Choreography by Kai Tomioka Performed by Ena Yamaguchi and Satoko Fukuda

In 2023 I made this piece, ‘One and the Same’. It was with two of my closest friends Ena Yamaguchi and Satoko Fukuda. We created it in the height of Japanese summer, and it was the first time I had been back in Japan since moving back to the UK. The piece was a chance for us to just be in a studio together, and whilst all our lived experiences are unique and will never be fully understood by anyone other than ourselves, we were questioning the similarities and differences amongst us. Ena and Satoko were both born and raised in Japan, before moving to the UK to study dance, whilst I grew up in London, studied dance there before moving out to Japan. Japanese is their mother tongue, English is mine. We share these two languages and two experiences of cultures. We wanted to push how together two can be, in both mind, manner and movement. What’s it means to read a room, to listen and to sense another with delicacy and subtlety. For a long time growing up, I didn’t feel I could fully own my Japanese identity. Thank you ena and satoko for encouraging me to embrace my Japanese self that whilst I may be ‘Hāfu’, we in some ways are one and the same too.

一年くらい前、このダンスを創った。
『一つであり同じこと』
僕の親友の二人、エナとサトコと一緒に創った。
この動画のパフォーマンス以来、僕らは同一の空間で一緒になったことが無い。
それは日本の夏のど真ん中、僕が日本を去ってイギリスに戻ってから、初めての日本滞在だった。
このダンスでは、僕たちの共通しているところと相違しているところを問いたかった。
エナもサトコも、日本で生まれ日本で育ち、イギリスでダンスを学んだ。
僕といえば、ロンドンで生まれ育ち、ダンスを学んで日本に向かった。
日本語がエナとサトコの母国語だ。僕のは英語。
僕らは、この二つの言語と二つの違った文化を駆使して、創造的活動をしている。
どうやったらこの違う経験を近づけることができるのか？
精神性、取り組み方、更にムーヴメント。
空間やパートナーの動きを、細心の配慮をしながら、読みそして聴く。
僕は今まで生きてきた中で、日本人としてのアイデンティティーを完全に持ち得たと実感したことが無い。
でも、エナとサトコのおかげで、日本人としてのもう一つの僕自身を抱きしめてあげることが出来るようになってきた。
それは一般に『ハーフ』って呼ばれる、僕のもう一つのアイデンティティーだけれど、

それでもやはりそれは、『一つであり同じこと』だって思えるような気がするんだ。

ECLIPSE

Directed by Zoe Gibson
Choreography and movement direction by Kai Tomioka
Dance Artists Kotoha Ito and James Olivo
 As part of Edinburgh Hidden Door Festival 2023

Jishin ジシン

In Japanese, the words jishin (地震) meaning “earthquake” and jishin (自信) meaning “confidence”

地震 (jishin): “Earthquake” combines 地 (earth, ground) and 震 (tremble, shake), literally meaning “the shaking of the earth.

自信 (jishin): “Confidence” combines 自 (self) and 信 (trust, belief), meaning “trust in oneself.”

Keeping trust, grounding and confidence in the moments where we are shaken by the world around us. This feels especially poignant in this moment.

日本語では、「じしん（地震）」は「地」（地面、土）と「震」（揺れる）を組み合わせ、「地面が揺れること」を意味します。一方で、「じしん（自信）」は「自」（自分）と「信」（信じる）を組み合わせ、「自分を信じること」という意味になります。

世界に揺さぶられる瞬間でも、信頼、安定、そして自信を保つこと。それが今、この瞬間に特に響く言葉です。

Thank you to Kobe jogakuin Dance Major, Sayo Homma and the dancers of Kobe for making this happen.

これを実現してくれた Kobe jogakuin dance major 、Sayoさん、そしてダンサーの皆さん、本当にありがとうございました。

A project with Key plus dance Key+プロジェクト

中本遥南

中谷美咲

北條祐衣

馬場陽月

住ノ江わあい

清岡咲良

荒谷優和

長谷川真歩

階戸ひめの

髙田綾乃

乃一芙歌

張紫璇

sketches from teaching

Solo

Solo by Kai Tomioka. Revisited in different moments of life.

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contact / enquiries tomioka.kai@gmail.com

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